Agnès Varda was a French director born in Ixelles, Belgium, widely credited as a precursor of the French New Wave and one of its few prominent women. Cléo from 5 to 7, tracking a singer's anxious wait for a cancer diagnosis in real time across Paris, established her reputation for formally inventive, emotionally precise storytelling, while Vagabond studied a young drifter's final days with unsentimental clarity. Later in her career she turned toward personal documentary, with The Gleaners and I and the autobiographical The Beaches of Agnès, and, in her late eighties, Faces Places, a joyful road-trip collaboration with the artist JR that earned her an Academy Award nomination. Honored with an honorary Oscar for her lifetime body of work, Varda remains one of the most beloved and influential figures in French cinema. Read more